Science, Inventions & SpaceDiscuss Planet 9 Could Destroy Earth as Soon as This Month at the General Discussion; Originally Posted by Pretty Flamingo
Just like those disaster movies, eh?
As Manitou's and others have pointed out........... ,...

Are we still here?Stargazers to join hunt for Planet 9Wed, Mar 29, 2017 - A LAST-MINUTE GIFT: Amateur astronomers who discover a celestial body will be allowed to suggest a name, the only rule is, it cannot be your own name

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Everyday stargazers will have a shot at naming a new planet by joining Australian astronomers in the hunt for a mysterious large orb believed to be circling the fringe of the solar system. Australian National University (ANU) researchers have invited the public to join them in the hunt for so called “Planet 9” by combing through a massive array of new pictures mapping the southern sky. They hope that eagle-eyed amateurs will help discover Planet 9, which is predicted to be four times as big as Earth with 10 times its mass, but has never been seen. In return, the planet’s finder has been promised input into the name put forward by the ANU team to the International Astronomical Union, which would make the final call.

ANU astrophysicist Brad Tucker said modern computers were no match for the passion of millions of people that would make possible the discovery of Planet 9 “and other things that move in space.” However, Tucker, who is leading the project, hinted that a break from planet naming tradition using ancient mythology would be in order. “I don’t want another Greek god, we have enough of those,” he said. “I’d want to think of something else.” Tucker hopes the lure of getting to name other objects in the sky that will inevitably be discovered during the search will pique public interest. “If you need a last minute birthday gift, or something like that, why not find an asteroid and name it after your wife?” he said.

The ANU on Monday launched online access to the first complete digital map of the southern sky. It is made up of hundreds of thousands of pictures taken by a robotic telescope called the SkyMapper at the university’s Siding Spring Observatory. Members of the public will be invited to scan time-lapse images for signs of new objects, in what Tucker likened to playing Where’s Wally?” on a grand scale. Similar searches of the vast majority of the northern sky have failed to turn up Planet 9. Chris Wolf, a coresearcher on the Planet 9 search and head of SkyMapper, said the 1.3m telescope was the only one in the world that mapped the whole southern sky. “Whatever is hiding there that you can’t see from the north, we will find it,” he said.

Tucker said Planet 9 was predicted to exist — and likely to show up in the southern hemisphere — because it would explain why Pluto, discovered in 1930, was a dwarf planet and had a “weird orbit.” “This is exactly how both Neptune and Pluto were discovered — mathematically it made the orbits of other planets make sense, and then they were found a bit later,” he said. “Planet 9 is predicted to be a super Earth, about 10 times the mass and up to four times the size of our planet. It’s going to be cold and far away, and about 800 times the distance between Earth and the sun. It’s pretty mysterious.”